<p>What are some under-represented majors at Yale?</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.yale.edu/oir/open/pdf_public/W014_Degs_YC.pdf[/url]”>http://www.yale.edu/oir/open/pdf_public/W014_Degs_YC.pdf</a></p>
<p>If you’re wondering if stating your intention to major in one of these in order to gain some advantage, forget it. Yale admits students to Yale college, not to potential majors.</p>
<p>Also, you can’t assume that when there are few numbers in a particular major, there’s an institutional mission to increase those numbers.</p>
<p>I don’t know, the science likely letters from this year kind of fit into what the above two posters describe.</p>
<p>^Perhaps, but that’s based not just on intended major, but also on your body of academic and extracurricular achievements in the sciences. Stating that you want to major in mechanical engineering obviously won’t be a great help unless you’ve done something to back that up.</p>
<p>Yale has made it pretty clear through the money and effort it’s pouring into the sciences and engineering that it wants to increase the number of majors in those areas. But that is not necessarily the case with every major that has small numbers. For instance, there is currently one Jewish Studies major in the entire college, but I don’t think there’s an institutional imperative to recruit more potential Jewish Studies majors. (I bet there’s a departmental imperative, though.) And as livorneo points out, even if Yale had that goal, an applicant wouldn’t help his case by merely expressing interest in the unusual major. He’d have to support that interest with tangible achievements.</p>